


What The Water Gave Me

by lostchildofthenewworld



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Grief, One Shot, Rhaenys is Meria, mixture of show and book
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-17
Updated: 2020-11-17
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:21:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27606215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lostchildofthenewworld/pseuds/lostchildofthenewworld
Summary: Give her the sun and water and she shall grow, with a garden of ghosts surrounding her.
Comments: 35
Kudos: 70
Collections: Southern Renaissance (Dorne Renaissance)





	What The Water Gave Me

**Author's Note:**

> Took this title from Florence + The Machine.  
> Had a one shot in mind for Rhaenys and it feels good to write and post something since I haven’t been able to lately.

The conversation around her is no more than a whisper in the wind as she reminds herself to breathe but she finds even reminding herself is a hard task to do. She hurts, the pain she feels that has since settled along her bruised and deformed heart is nothing new but the anger that has come with it is.

She knows that the gods are cruel, but this cruelty even after death… _is there no rest for even the dead?_ She asks herself.

Death was supposed to be an eternal sleep, because for all the suffering that the living must go through, why can the weary not rest in their graves?

But the gods are not kind, even their small acts of mercy are not enough to soothe the brutality that they often dole unto their servants.

Her face is impeccable but on the inside, on the inside something terrible has taken root and has begun to take shape and grow; its roots first slithering across the ground like a garden snake, seeking out the sun in order to grow taller still.

Her breathing is erratic in her mind, but her lips remained coy even though she wants to let them form into a snarl, even when she wants to take the dagger that her sweet cousin Tyene gave to her and slide it through the ribs of this queen and king who demand, who demand more and more from Dorne, from House Martell when they have given the dragons all but their dignity.

_It is not I that is supposed to be here._

Her uncle Doran had suffered many losses and maybe after the death of his first-born son he could have went on, maybe after the death on his only surviving sibling he could have kept going, maybe after the death of his second-born son by another Lannister betrayal, he could have kept his head held high, but the death of his heir? His daughter who was his most precious jewel?

Her uncle had turned into a burning man and it had scared her to see him so weak then, because the responsibility of Dorne should not have been placed upon her shoulders either, because it should have been her mother, Elia of Dorne who should have been next in line for the Sun Chair.

_But she is not here, neither is Uncle Doran, nor Uncle Oberyn. We who remain are the few, but we remember._

Because all that is left is cousin Manfrey and her bastard cousins, with some Gargalen cousins who will never come into the succession line for Dorne.

 _Princess Rhaenys Targaryen_ , but now she realizes that even then that had not been true because as she sits and stares at Daenerys Targaryen and Jon Snow she finds the truth so bitter to swallow and she curses herself for her weakness because she _knew_ – she knew. The gods are not kind, for they did not spare her mother nor even her brother, why did she even bother to think they would be gentle with her?

_Mama and Egg._

Even now her heart lurches and it twists in its deformed state as it hungers for what it has lost. Nights where she screamed in her dreams that had often turned into nightmares, where she went to the training yard and practiced her sword and spear because she would never leave herself so unprotected as she had been before when she was but a babe.

_I have been shaped and formed by grief, betrayals and lies._

Some days when she wakes, her limbs do not feel as her own, as though her body is not her own and she is just a specter who is residing in an obliging host.

Her chest rattles as she keeps her gaze unfocused and the words around her drown in and out, but she feels hot, as though she is standing underneath the Dornish sun and not as if she is not in King’s Landing in the small council’s chamber.

 _I am the sun;_ she muses to herself. She is of the sun alone, as she has always been since she was a babe.

When she had been smuggled to Dorne, she did not know how she came to be only that she remembered her mother’s scream and sickly sounds. She remembers the rocking motion of the boat and how it lulled her to sleep as whispers formed around her as they did now. Her uncle Doran had looked so heartbroken but grateful she was alive, because then that meant a piece of his sister and of her mother was still alive too.

 _The gods give us scraps and we must be thankful,_ she thinks disdainfully keeping the grimace off her face. 

She fixes her gaze toward the man who calls himself Jon Snow, his real name Aegon Targaryen and something hisses in her, like a snake that finds something or someone in their den and is warning them away, lest they be striked and killed.

It is an insult, an insult that cannot be covered with empty platitudes and gold. She has learned long ago that payment and debts must be returned, they must be **exact**. Dorne has spilled its blood, has given up princesses and princes alike for House Targaryen and in return they give them… _they give me…_ this.

A man who has been given her brother’s name, a brother who did not live past his first year of life. A brother who did not grow up to be strong, to not develop his own likes and dislikes, a brother that had been stolen from her just as her mother had been stolen too and to know, to know that it did not matter. That Lannister treachery and brutality did not matter because her mother’s marriage had been annulled, _annulled in Dorne!_ While Elia and her children had been kept as nothing more than hostages for ten thousand Dornish spears, Dornish lives bought…this.

This farce of a man who does not have the silver hair that her brother did, who does not have the Dornish viper eyes so like her own, so like her mother that both her and Egg shared.

It burns something fierce, engulfing and unforgiving as she knows that Dornish lives have been bought for lies and betrayal. She understands now why her Uncle Oberyn’s fury had been loud at times and deadly silent the next.

_Was there no shame to be had? Did the Silver Prince and his Lady Love not think of others? Did the realm have to bleed and be raped and butchered for such love? For this?_

Her gaze is discreet as she listens to these demands and she keeps looking at this Aegon, who is so obviously different from the one she knew, the one that she held and had kissed because finally, he had came out of their mother and she had been happy to be a big sister like her cousin Obara.

Though her Uncle Doran had claimed her as his own, she was no big sister, not anymore. She was a niece and a cousin, but a daughter and sister? Those are titles she would never wear again, and she is reminded once more that she should not be here.

She is restless on her best days, her eyes searching out through the balcony windows as she would watch the children in the Water Gardens, her heart torn even more as she is happy for their youth and saddened at her own.

She was once a babe but had become the Crone in the blink of an eye, her soul had been dwindled like a fire and though it still blazed, it was not enough to warm others.

Until now.

As she sits with the other lords and ladies of the Seven Kingdoms, the fire in her burns through her veins, crawling up her spine and licking at faded and cauterized wounds.

No one outside of her family knows the truth, but she is also happy that her uncles are not alive, that they do not need to know of how their beloved sister had been so discarded and abused and used as a shield for other’s actions and disgrace.

To the world Rhaenys Targaryen died during the Sack of King’s Landing, but here she sits as Princess Meria Nymeros Martell, a name that had been chosen by both her uncles.

“By what means is House Targaryen going to rectify their mistakes to House Martell, to Dorne?” Her voice cuts through the air like a freshly sharpened spear – swift and deadly.

Dorne does not forget, just as the sun is unyielding, she will not bow, she will not bend, and she shall not break.

Her onyx orbs catch amethysts first and then silver grey, but she does not flinch, because while the grey eyes watch her warily, she can see the fire in the Dragon Queen’s eyes.

But before either of them can speak, she continues, “The Rebellion was built on a lie – or at least a partial lie. Lyanna Stark was not kidnapped, no she willingly ran away with a married man and father of two, a babe that had just been born, no less. My aunt and my cousins, Princess Elia, Princess Rhaenys and Prince Aegon had been held hostage for Dornish spears, to force my father to give up our countrymen, kinsmen for the actions of House Targaryen. Because that is what allies do, is it not? Yet now I know that House Targaryen was never an ally of House Nymeros Martell. That my family had been nothing more than a shield to cover for a sickly and pathetic prince’s actions as he discarded one family to make room for the next.”

Her stomach clenches once more but she keeps going, like the sun that is just beginning to rise over the horizon to signify a new day.

“That Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark absconded in Dorne of all places, in the very same tower that had been gifted by my own grandmother to my aunt for her marriage, is there no shame to be had in such debased actions?” No woman deserves to be treated so horribly, when you take vows your health and protection fall to your husband, for he is your lord and to know that no thought had been given, the knife that has been lunged into her back is turned once more as the fire grows hotter in her.

Her eyes are sharp as she takes in everyone’s appearance because she doubts that they have had time to truly think what this revelation means. It was not just Dornish men who died on the Trident, no – the Reach suffered too along with the Crownlands who had been loyal to the Dragons.

“Yet here you are, here we are, once more and I see that once again House Targaryen is yet demanding more. Was the blood of Princess Elia and her children not enough? What of my Uncle Oberyn’s blood that been spilt for that wretched creature you keep as your Hand?” Her index finger pointed towards Tyrion Lannister, though she would not begrudge her Uncle for seeking vengeance, the fact that he died in service to a Lannister will always make blood scream.

“What of Prince Quentyn, who went to Meereen in order to broker an alliance, only to be killed? What of Prince Trystane that had been murdered by your Hand’s sister? It appears House Targaryen forgets who her allies are and rewards her enemies instead. But that is quite alright, your memory may be short but mine, _ours_ is not.”

How often did the Seven Kingdoms forget that Dorne did not bow to the Dragons, that they had kept their heads high even as Daeron the Young killed and raped his way through Dorne for no other reason than to have something that was not his to take.

Her memory is long, for even now she can recall her mama and the words she sung like honey into her ears. Mayhaps that is why this feels so painful because she can still recall, can still remember her life before it had changed so drastically.

But even then, when she was older and went to her mama’s old rooms in Sunspear and found her mama’s thoughts written down and she felt crushed again. Of all her hopes and dreams, of her sickly health when she was younger and even the friends, she had made in the Water Gardens. Of her mother’s crush on Baelor Hightower and how she had convinced her mother to begin a contract dismissing his sudden bout of gas as nothing more because he was sweet and she wanted a sweet man, but it had been crushed when the Mad King had called for her, for that sliver of Valyrian blood that was nothing short of a curse on House Martell and Dorne as a whole.

“The death of Prince Quentyn was a terrible accident, I had told him to return but alas, he thought he could ride a dragon.” Daenerys answered her and her retort was quick and vicious, “And yet a wolf rides a dragon now, funny that is. Though it would not be the first time, now would it?”

It disgusts her, truly it does to know that so much had been lost in the name of love, but what was love when all that remained was destruction, of dried blood and soulless bodies?

Nothing.

“History has forgotten that Dorne was given through marriage, with Princess Myriah Martell giving up her inheritance to marry Daeron the Good, with the Lady Dyanna Dayne following next in order to bring further peace between the Iron Throne and Dorne. But I see now how wasted their efforts have been, how it seems the Dragons do not give loyalty in the same way they demand it. Let it be known that Dorne is now separating herself from these Kingdoms.”

It was so silent in the council chamber that Meria had thought she could hear a rat scurrying across the floor.

She can see the shock expressions and she wondered if they thought that Dorne would simply accept this? That Dorne would once again put a docile smile on their faces and be glad for the scraps the Dragons leave behind. But they forget, how often do they forget that while Dragons may not plant the seeds, the seeds search for the sun – now and always. That in order to grow, it needs to bathe in the light of the sun in order to grow taller still.

She does not wish to know of all that happened North, of how the Dragon Queen came to Westeros with three dragons and now only has one. She does not think of how Cersei Lannister burned the Great Sept and caused such destruction with the same green fire her own grandsire had been obsessed with.

No, Meria does not think of these things. She thinks about how many men the Dragon Queen has lost in her bid for the throne, she thinks about how the Reach had been sacked and Daenerys had come too late with her help.

Dorne had stayed out of the business of the realm, for while others thought they were still licking their wounds – _we were, we are, as we will always be_ – Dorne had been patiently waiting, and waiting and waiting and now she sees the line in the sand. She sees where her Uncle Doran had planted his seeds so that it would come to fruition, she sees the nurturing that had been given by her Uncle Oberyn and her stomach twist near violently to know that they are not here to see it, to see her right the wrongs that House Martell has suffered plenty and tenfold for.

She wonders, her thoughts once more drifting off as she stares out the window, where the sun is stretching, she wonders about her mother and brother, where they are, which of the Seven Heavens have they claimed for their eternal days? Or mayhaps Mother Rhyone has taken them for her own, to swim upon the Rhoyne lazily, with the Old Men of the River watching on? What of her uncles and cousins, where are they? Do they sleep peacefully too?

 _I should not be here, this is not my place,_ but it is where she is and where she shall remain until the gods call for her too.


End file.
